Femara and frequency (tonight?!)--girl sway

[sakywati]

Oh, man, I posted this in the intros forum instead of here--so sorry. Please feel free to ignore/delete that one! I'll post again here since it seems more relevant.

I've enjoyed reading everything here over the past year or so, and this is my first post. I have two sons and am hoping for a daughter.

My question is a bit immediate! I'm on Femara right now for the first time (after about 6 cycles of no pregnancy so far despite trying, every month so far we've had one attempt in the fertile window). We had sex on CD10, then this morning at CD12 I got a +OPK, which means I'll probably ovulate tomorrow on CD13. I had been going for every 4 days, meaning we'd be due tomorrow (CD13) night, but it's possible I'll have ovulated by then. I've had fertile CM for a few days now.

What I'm asking is, if we have sex tonight (CD12), that means we've had two attempts in the fertile window, right? Which would be boy-friendly? But if we wait until tomorrow, we could miss ovulation, which means our best shot was CD10 for a CD13 ovulation. What should I do?! I want to maximize the chances of getting a girl, but am also getting antsy about getting pregnant now and want to take advantage of the Femeara. Any guidance or suggestions would be welcome! Thanks!

[atomic sagebrush]

Hi and welcome out of lurkdom!

When was the last dose of the Femara?

I would have the attempt. You've been going on quite a while with just one attempt, so it's def. time to add an attempt. You could do this in the "e4d" method and have that attempt CD 13 OR you could just have one now to be sure you're in before the egg drops.

Either/or, at your discretion. The only thing I don't want you to do is stick with the CD 10 attempt, that would have very low chance of conception.

[sakywati]

Thank you for the welcome!

Last dose of Femara was CD7 (it was a 3-7 dosage). I've had crazy fertile CM since CD9 now. I had definitely been planning to have another attempt! Just worried about having it tonight at CD12 because then if the egg drops tomorrow, I've basically done an every-other-day this month, right? That makes me nervous about the girl sway! It's basically how I got my two boys, LOL!

I went back and counted, and I've done about 3 sway cycles while breastfeeding (historically I can't get pregnant then), and now 4 cycles with one attempt and no longer breastfeeding. I drink coffee and alcohol regularly, skip breakfast regularly, but eat pretty much like crap (sugar/crap foods) whenever I feel like otherwise.

[atomic sagebrush]

It's your call to make, use the rule of thumb "for best chance of conception, have attempt, for best odds of pink stick with attempt you've had." But your odds of conception will be quite low, virtually NIL with the attempt you've had. You've been at this a while and my gut tells me it's time for you to add attempt now esp. with the Femara on board, but it's always your call to make. Two attempts has not gotten much lower chances of pink than one lately so my gut instinct is for you to have an attempt.

[sakywati]

Two attempts has not gotten much lower chances of pink than one lately so my gut instinct is for you to have an attempt.

This definitely makes me feel better! We went ahead last night and had sex, so now we had attempts CD10 and CD12. This morning my temp spiked a little bit and my OPK is negative, but still lots of CM and cervix is soft and high, so if ovulation is happening tonight I'm really glad we did the attempt last night! Just watching for a temp rise now. FX.

[sakywati]

Thought I'd give an update! I started my period today, so no luck this cycle, unfortunately. I'm trying to come up with my plan for this cycle to see if I should tweak anything. We're now on something like cycle 9 or 10 of trying, after several cycles swaying and breastfeeding, then several cycles dropping the breastfeeding but maintaining the one attempt, and now one cycle with two attempts + letrozole, all with no luck. Historically I've been able to get pregnant pretty easily, so this is frustrating, but I guess now I'm a few years older (36) than I was when I conceived my two boys. It's strange for sure!

Here's what I'm thinking:
- get back on the saddle with intermittent fasting this month, but otherwise maintain my low-key (so as not to get into OCD tendencies, which I have a habit of) diet sway with coffee, alcohol, low nutrition and somewhere around 1400-1700 calories/day
- add in folate every day (I had been taking it when I remembered so far but seems like I should take every day)
- maybe a prenatal a couple times a week?
- femara/letrozole this cycle if my doctor calls it in this week
- how many attempts and when should they be?

Would love suggestions or feedback! Thanks to this community! Really hoping I don't have to go through this TTC business much longer, and just hoping I can get a girl out of it!

[atomic sagebrush]

When are you having the attempts up till now? Not this past month but in earlier months?

Can you elaborate on what you mean by "low nutrition"? Because I don't think you'll do well on the standard LE Diet and may need to go to the alternate LE instead.

My inclination is for you to go to e4d. this does not have to do with a lack of prenatal, so I hesitate to have you go that route (unless you are tested and found lacking in nutrients) 2x a week is ok if you must but I really don't think that has anything to do with why you're not pregnant yet. I would say have attempts starting after your last dose of letrozole every 72 hours or Monday/Thursday (not that number of hours or those days specifically, I'm explaining how to count the days) and continuing on till you're 100% sure you've ovulated even if that means you have attempts till your next period starts.

Then, at your option, if you want best chance of conception but ~possibly~ slightly lower chance of pink (tho like I said, we have gotten good results with 2 attempts too) another attempt at first positive OPK while continuing on with the every 4 days both before and after that attempt. Don't change the pattern based on that attempt.

[sakywati]

When are you having the attempts up till now? Not this past month but in earlier months?

Up until last month we had been having just one attempt in the fertile window, and it usually ended up being the night before I got a positive OPK, so we would leave it at that, I’d confirm ovulation by temping, and that was it.

When I conceived my boys, I had just come off either one or two miscarriages and was super stressed out, trying to be extra healthy, taking every vitamin that might help, eating super healthy (green smoothies at breakfast, lots of nut butters, fruits and veggies, whole wheat bread, meat most days, cut out coffee/caffeine and almost all alcohol, etc.). In both those cases I had also just gained 5-10 pounds from the hormones etc. We usually had 3+ attempts those months.

Now, I’m 5’4” and about 150 pounds, so I could stand to lose a little weight. Intermittent fasting works pretty well for me since I’m not too hungry until late morning, so most days I have coffee with some cream in the morning, and when I’m hungry at 11am or so I have whatever I feel like—usually crackers, maybe a Cliff bar. I eat little bits of stuff all day and have a sweet tooth, so I‘ll grab a cookie, some Swedish fish, whatever. I often start to feel super hungry mid afternoon and will have some cheese or peanut butter. In the evenings I drink ~2 glasses of wine and we have pretty healthy family dinners, tonight for example rice, chicken, salsa, avocado. I’ve tried not to pay too much attention to diet since i can get a little over stressed and obsessive about it and I’d rather try to be relaxed! Maybe I’m doing it wrong?

I have a vitamin D deficiency so I take that a few times a week, maybe will add in a prenatal once a week to make myself feel better. Last month I started taking ubiquinol because I expect my eggs are crappy. Should I keep that?

I will definitely go to every 4 days! Will see how we feel this month with adding in at positive OPK. That means I could end up with something like 0-3, 0-1, and 0, though, right?

[atomic sagebrush]

Ok. Night before positive OPK might be pretty low chances of conception so let's not look at this through any kind of infertility lens just yet.

I suggest doing e4d in the "72 hour" pattern like I explained above.

yes all that stuff would sway blue, so we have a LOT of wiggle room between what you were doing with your boys and what you've been doing!

Ubiquinol is fine. Keep taking the Vit. D, as long as you're proven low in something I'm fine with you guys taking it, it's taking it out of the fear you need it that I don't like. 1-2 days a week on prenatal at your discretion.

I don't think it's necessarily a good trade to think "well I may obsess over diet, therefore I won't do it" for two reasons. One is that it's easy to undermine your sway by getting too much, but the more important reason is that it's also easy to undermine your ability to conceive by cutting back TOO far. Given your weight which is in normal range, I doubt that's the case for you, but I do like to see you guys track cals, pro, and fat. We drop tracking the stuff that DOESN"T matter, like pH, temping charts, CM, that sort of thing, but tracking diet stuff does help and thus I continue to recommend it. It's your call as long as you're sure to get enough, after all you've def. made changes in a pink-friendly direction, but I'm just trying to explain why I find "not tracking to prevent obsession" not the best approach.

Yes, in the worst case scenario you could technically end up with attempts O-3, O-1 and O Day. But this is still going to be only two attempts. Here's why: if there was anything left from O-3 and O-1 they would already have fertilized the egg before the O Day shot could capacitate. (and the odds are good the O-3 would be long gone by then) And if there wasn't, the O Day shot would have a chance at the egg. Since there was sperm on hand, it would always have the first shot at the egg before the final attempt could come into play because sperm take some time to capacitate after depositing (approximately 4 hours), and only if the first two batches didn't get the job done (because they'd all died out) would that final shot have an opportunity. So while I do have more faith in the straight e4d method, e4d plus one is not the end of the world.

[sakywati]

Just wanted to post an update here! We ended up doing the E4D suggestion and added an attempt at +OPK, which happened to be the day after one of our E4D attempts. So, ended up with O-3, O-1, and O. I got a positive pregnancy test at the end of October, and we're delighted!

I just got my Sneak Peek results back yesterday, which claim we're having another boy. Can't lie, I'm disappointed. Have my next scan and check up next week at 9w2d, so I'm hoping we can do the blood draw for one of the NIPTs next week as well to confirm sex. Will update again after that!